Knowing when to say goodbye: A eulogy for my Suzuki Swift

Saying goodbye to a great car is always hard. Here's to you, sweet Lily

by
Clayton Seams | June 24, 2014

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It’s been an incredible journey. I spent three years and 30,000 kilometers with this little gem. I drove it as far as Portland (from Calgary), raced it on frozen lakes and wound out that little engine as fast as it would go on rural backroads. But sadly, my time with this lovely car has come to an end. However, let’s focus not on the death at hand, but on the time we shared together.

For months, my 1989 Suzuki Swift GTi has been inoperable due to a misfire that I couldn’t trace. After replacing the distributor, plugs, wires, fuel injectors and fuel filter I threw my hands up and had a mechanic diagnose it. The verdict? My poor Lily has a stuck valve on cylinder #3 and the head would need to be machined to fix it. Additionally, rust has penetrated both rocker panels (structural), I live 2,200 miles (3,540 km) from it now and it wouldn’t pass Ontario’s emissions tests due to the modifications I’ve done to it. It’s sadly time to let go.

I wanted it to be my forever car. The previous owner raised his kids in it and, naive as it might sound, I wanted to do the same. I got 36/54 mpg city/highway with it and loved every minute of it. Parts for the rare G13B engine are pricey and I spent $2,700 maintaining it over the years.

Nobody else could really drive my car. It had a laundry list of quirks that made it almost undriveable unless you knew them. You had to pull the door handle a few times to get in, you had to double-clutch into second or it would grind, you had to keep the revs above 2,000 at night or the serpentine belt would squeal and it had a strange shudder at exactly 102 km/h. It wasn’t perfect, but she was my car and I loved her.

I can still remember driving out past city limits in that car at night with Lazerhawk playing through the two paper dash speakers. Occasionally I used to just go for a drive at 2 a.m. In the dead of night, I would zip around the empty downtown streets listening to the barely muffled engine reverberate against the dark, glass buildings.

As it stands, the car is on the other side of the country from me so doing the work myself is a bit tricky. Paying someone to fix the rockers and head would easily top $3,000 and shipping it to my home in Toronto is another $1,000 at least. It doesn’t make sense to drop another $4,000 into a $2,000 car with nearly 200,000 km on it.

I’m buying a new car but it won’t be the same. Lily, nothing can ever replace you. I’ll always remember.